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Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Niccolo Machiavelli
Age: 58 †
Born: 1469
Born: May 3
Died: 1527
Died: June 22
Diplomat
Historian
Military Theorist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Political Theorist
Politician
Translator
Writer
Florence
Tuscany
Nicolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Nicolò Machiavelli
N. Machiavelli
Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Machiavelli
Choose
Please
Free
Rampant
Drives
Become
Disorder
Good
Necessity
Never
Confusion
Men
Unless
More quotes by Niccolo Machiavelli
Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.
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He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
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And above all you ought to guard against leading an army to fight which is afraid or which is not confident of victory. For the greatest sign of an impending loss is when one does not believe one can win.
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It is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman.
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States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications the first bad weather kills them
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When settling disputes between his subjects, he should ensure that his judgement is irrevocable and he should be so regarded that no one ever dreams of trying to deceive or trick him.
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Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Men are less hesitant about harming someone who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared because love is held together by a chain of obligation which, since men are wretched creatures, is broken on every occasion in which their own interests are concerned but fear is sustained by dread of punishment which will never abandon you.
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War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.
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Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.
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You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.
Niccolo Machiavelli
We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
Niccolo Machiavelli
One arises from a low to a high station more often by using fraud instead of force.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their actions by imitation.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
Niccolo Machiavelli
A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline because that is the only art befitting one who commands.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The ends justifies the means.
Niccolo Machiavelli
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.
Niccolo Machiavelli
There is nothing so difficult or so dangerous as to undertake to change the order of things.
Niccolo Machiavelli
